We have heard this question from non-designer friends more than few times. So, what is the true purpose of all this? Here are some thoughts following last Thursday night’s ceremony and why we believe that the Greek Design and Illustration Awards (EBGE) are cool.

EBGE 2016

To begin with, we just got our 5th “agency of the year” award in the past 10 years and it feels good. It feels even better to know that after 15 years, as a team, we can still come up with unique ideas and deliver top quality design services.

An EBGE is always a great marketing tool. Design agencies or freelance designers rarely spend any resources in advertising their services. Getting an award is not just a reason to promote your self, it’s GREAT NEWS and you can shout it out with pride to all your audiences. Clients are also getting a proof that their choice was a worthy one and potential clients find another appealing reason to hire you. Not to mention, teammates become more confident and start remembering the hard times they had during the creation of a project with nostalgia rather than exhaust.

Yet, even if we didn’t win, our perception on this matter would be exactly the same and here are some reasons why.

First of all, EBGE is always a good reason for us to organise a small trip from Thessaloniki to Athens. Beetroot members can spare some quality time with each other, away from stressful deadlines. Since 2001 we have gathered the best memories from (award receiving) trips around the world or within Greece, where space and time allowed us to get to know each other and have fun as a team.

EBGE 2008

EBGE 2006

EBGE 2015

EBGE 2005

EBGE 2010

EBGE 2012

Second, being part of EBGE gives us the feel that we are a small part of the Greek Design history. The annual EBGE catalogue, that includes the best projects (judges’ opinion), is a great documentation tool that we gladly participate in.

Third, the awards are also an opportunity to have a closer look at the competition. It’s always rejuvenating to check the work of great Greek designers. The ability for exceptional typographic synthesis of both ex-designers united D. Papazoglou and D.Koliadimas with his Semiotic design, the state of the art aesthetics that is allover the projects of Katerina Panagiotou and the MNP, the fresh and full of emotion work of bob studio, the amazing illustrations and comic work of Tomek, the vigorous ink works of Tind, the top quality animations of Tony Zagoraios and his team and many more, help us rearrange our design point of view and give us strong motivation to evolve as a team.

Fourth, meeting people that share the same dreams and problems with us, people that we would have probably never run into if there was no EBGE. We saw old classmates with their own design journey, great teachers still being great, former beetroot interns managing their own companies now, friends, young, old, an amazing mosaic of people, co-travellers and main key elements responsible for the continuity of Greek Graphic Design.

EBGE 2005

EBGE 2008

And fifth, during last Thursday’s ceremony we got a feeling that there is a community after all. A kind of community that strongly supports communal activities such as the great project Synergastirion. A community that gives standing ovations to design legends such as Daniel Gounaridis. A community that has human reactions and cares. For the last 14 years EBGE has been a part of this design community and a useful gear for the Greek design industry overall.

So is there anything great about EBGE anyway?

YES, many things about EBGE are awesome and we are already looking forward to be a part of it again.

Riding a bicycle is much more than a means of carbon-free transportation. It signifies a healthier and happier way of life, a tool with which anyone can transform an urban or outdoor journey to an meaningful experience. These posters, originally commissioned by the BikeArt.gr initiative, are bike printed in an engaging happening where cyclists are invited to strike through their own personal manifesto.

This is the view from our office in Thessaloniki facing the Thermaic Gulf.
Sometimes cargo ships moor right in front while the currents and the wind force them to move around. Their slow dance is not easily observed by the naked eye.

As our means for communication become more and more visual, the need for creating, assimilating or holding up to a visual identity seems to grow exponentially. Among many others, the social media arguably provided the most attractive mirror to the modern Narcissi: a mirror that can be altered (by Narcissus) to show what the reflected person wants. We have reached a time where the “vain youth” can hold the reflecting pool in his hands and control his reflection, despite the fact that the result of his mythos is unaffected.

Beetroot created Narcissus – The First Selfie after the invitation of the Imago Mundi (Image of the World) global cultural project that aspires to foster openness, new horizons and the coexistence of expressive diversity. The collection, hosted by the Fondazione Benetton, is up to now comprising of approximately 2000 works of art collected since 2008 by Luciano Benetton and has no commercial aspirations and aspires to unite the diversities of the world in the name of a common artistic experience.

In Chicago, or “the city by the lake” a new monster appeared… It came from the lake Lerna in the Argolid, from a far away land called Greece. The offspring of Typhon and Echidna, Lernean Hydra, a gigantic monster with nine heads -more or less- decided to go travelling to the other side of the globe and took together a bunch of other friendly monsters from its little homeland. Lernean Hydra, whose heads when cut off, two grow in its place, stands as a reminder of persistence:

“Cutting is easier
Than growing…”

The NationalHellenicMuseum (333 South Halsted Street, Chicago) offered its fantastic building to host the up to now, biggest version of the Greek Monsters exhibition, since a brand new Greek monster was designed especially for the Chicago show! The grand opening took place last Friday and was visited by the wonderful people of Chicago.

The Greek Monsters liked Chicago that much, that they decided to stay until May 2015.
Thank you so much Chicago for the great time and …

Now that the crazy election period is over, we would like to share with you the electoral campaign of the party Protovoulia and the mayor of Thessaloniki, Yianni Boutari. In this project we were given the opportunity to create a campaign that was “slightly” different from typical election campaigns! We want to thank Thessalonikis’ mayor and candidate for best mayor in the world (http://www.worldmayor.com/contest_2014/long-list-2014.html) for trusting us in this “daring” project.

Surrounded by some of the most successful agencies in Europe, Beetroot attended a great ceremony at Cologne, Germany and received a total of 6 major European Design Awards (2 silver, 4 bronze and 2 finalist awards)!

The projects that won ED awards this year are: the brand implementation of the Cavafy archive, the annual year programs and illustrations for the educational program of the Onassis Cultural Center, the identity of the Presidency of the Council of the European Union, and last but not least our business cards portraying the creative and crazy people that form our team.

We want to thank our fantastic clients and share our excitement with all of you who support our work!

In a typically joyous and upbeat mood, the Cyclops, the Minotaur and more than twenty monsters from the Greek mythology, welcomed their first guests at the opening of “The Greek Monsters” exhibition at the Olympic Atrium of the Onassis Cultural Center in Manhattan, NYC.

Joining Beetroots’ beloved monsters, a new monster that was created especially for the occasion was unveiled: The dragon “Ladon”, the fearless guardian of the golden apples of the garden of the Hesperides was presented as a symbol of the human need to “advance” beyond ones’ secure past.

The exhibition is presented in collaboration with the Onassis Cultural Center at the Olympic Atrium (645 5th Ave New York) until July. Don’t forget to check out The Little Monsters program that is available for children of all ages.
For more information click here:http://www.onassisusa.org/occ_view.php?id=213&m=3&h=3&tcid=1

Another year of EBGE (Greek Graphic Design and Illustration Awards) came to an end with our team receiving a total of 9 distinctions (two awards and 7 merits)!!!
The signage for the mall Mediterranean Cosmos, the advertisements for the building materials Metaxiotis, the illustrations for the educational program of the Onassis Cultural Center, the brand identity for the cafe Stories, our work for ekies all senses resort, the cover of the German magazine NOVUM were a few of our projects that were awarded at the great night of the EBGE 2014 awards.

We want to thank our customers for their support and all of our partners and friends who believe in our work.

It has almost been two years since we last updated our website but they were definitely two years of hard work and effort, which is finally online for you to discover!

Old collaborations but also new ones were formed throughout these two years. Projects such as the Greek Presidency of the European Council, the famous instant cold coffee: Frappé, the launching campaign of our beloved Onassis Cultural Center (a.k.a Stegi) but also every promotional material for the events held at Stegi, the archive of the poet C.P. Cavafy, google action figures for google developers, stories about home baked cookies but also self initiated projects such as eros (love) as seen through the eyes of our creative team…

The aforementioned are just some of the projects we’ve been working on for the past two years so we invite you to go online and check the rest of our work!

Faust’s cry marks the human part that, more than any other, is connected to love.

As part of its flourishing collaboration with the Onassis Cultural Centre, Beetroot created the visual identity for one of the most anticipated performances of this season!

“A personal delving into the darkness of human Desire”

Using as a starting point this comment by the director of the new production of “Faust”, Michail Marmarinos, we created a key visual in which desire mutates the hero’s most vital organ.
Faust’s “heart” symbolises the unique condition of the human being who despite having virtually everything keeps craving for more and through a twisted “Darwinian” point of view mutates to succeed.

Mosaics, gods, drops, roots, stone giants, birds with skymirrors and the Greek monsters are just a few of our works that won five gold awards, one silver award and the Grand ERMIS at the impressive ERMIS 2013 awards ceremony!

We would like to thank our clients for trusting us and for offering us the framework in which those works were created: Museum of Byzantine Culture, The Life Goddess, A Couple of Drops and of course STEGI, the Onassis Cultural Centre, the monsters salute you.

By surpassing every sense of rational thinking, prudence or prejudice, the act of making love, is the most direct and sincere form of emotional expression agonist human beings. Eros, Our new exhibition at the a.antonopoulou art gallery salutes love in the physical sense by presenting high-quality prints, original artworks and sculptures that you may obtain by literally touching, feeling and grasping on site! Join the fun at a.antonopoulou gallery